This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Construction barrels and cones are utilized on road construction sites to direct vehicles in alternative routes or to safely deflect the traffic from construction work and workers. The construction zones can extend for several miles. As the construction work is completed for a given day, the barrels can be moved to the side of the road to allow the traffic to resume use of the temporarily closed-off lanes. On a subsequent day, the construction barrels and cones can be moved back into the roadway to provide a safe zone for construction work. This process can be repeated for several days, weeks or months. Typically, the movement of the construction barrels or cones has been performed by workers who manually move the construction barrels and cones into and out of position on a regular basis.
Published US Patent Application No. 2005/0196257A1 discloses a device for translocating roadway markers which is attached to the front end of a heavy-duty multi-ton vehicle. The device utilizes a transferring member that can be angled relative to the longitudinal direction of travel of the vehicle and includes a plurality of rollers disposed in a spaced relation along a length thereof for engaging construction barrels and trans-locating them from one side of the road to another. As the transferring member engages the barrels, the barrels move along the rollers from one side of the vehicle to another. The device of published US Patent Application No. 2005/0196257A1 is commercially available under the name Artec and although it works satisfactorily for moving construction barrels when the vehicle is driven at sufficiently low speeds, it is incapable of moving construction cones. Furthermore, the device is extremely heavy so that it can only be mounted to special heavy duty vehicles and the maximum speed of the vehicle is approximately 45 MPH when the device is lifted to an upright, non-use, position.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a device for reliably moving roadway markers, including construction cones and construction barrels, and which is relatively light weight so that it can be used with lighter weight vehicle and does not significantly inhibit the driving speed of the vehicle when the device is not in use.